Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On Deputy Rabbitte's question, I do not know whether the Department has considered the matter. I will feed that in. It is an interesting recommendation. What the Deputy is suggesting is a form of transition to ensure that a year or a couple of years do not go by with insufficient capacity. Anything we can find that offers support in this regard would be helpful. At the same time, resources are limited, and this must be considered also.

All the Deputies' questions are critical in the sense of trying to be a little ahead of the curve to ensure we have enough places and sufficient capacity. As the Deputies know, we have been developing methodologies for this for quite some time, but their suggestions are helpful.

There was a question on additional criteria in respect of grants for preschools, crèches and childcare centres, including naíonraí. The suggestion that learning through Irish could be part of the criteria is very interesting. I will feed that back. It would need to be considered in the context of the capital grant section that does the work or the working groups being formed to consider how to make progress on all the commitments in the First 5 strategy, in addition to commitments regarding preschool, in particular, and Irish language initiatives in the context of the work of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. I will raise the matter with my Department to determine the best way to consider it and possibly include it.

See this speech in context